Excerpt
Joel was not a spiritual person. Never had been. For almost
thirty years as a maritime engineer, Joel had spent most if not all
of his time in his head. His brain had earned him some degree of
respect in his profession and helped him to survive disaster after
disaster on the bumpy journey of life. But at this very moment,
sitting astride the orange horse on the crest of a hill, admiring the
grazing mares and foals, Joel felt for a moment the power of his
heart. It had been a long time since he had this kind of feeling,
but Joel knew that he was feeling rather than thinking. He could
feel his heart coming to life.
With the exception of the sounds of nature, the silence was
so powerful that the only way he could think to describe it was
that it was very huge. Or so it seemed to Joel who had spent
most of his mornings for the last thirty-two years nursing a
hangover in one urban ghetto or another as horns blasted and
fumes rose from the heart of the city outside his hotel room or
apartment. Compared to the city this was looking like a pretty
good way to start a day. Sure, it didn’t have a Starbucks. But
you know what. This was better. And with this realization Joel
made a mental note to himself that yes, it surely was a wonderful
day to be alive.
It must have been an hour since he had let himself through the
swinging ranch gate that led to the pasture of abundance. Abundant
with the kind of grass that only a true son of the prairie
could appreciate. Sure, it had been a lot of years since his childhood
days on the ranch, but he still knew the value of good pasture
when he saw it. And this pasture was very good, having a
thick mat of hearty wild grasses standing a foot high in some
places. This was the kind of grass that cattlemen yearned for, and
if they got excited about the grass, you can only imagine the kind
of impact it had on the livestock.
Beyond the natural abundance of the grass, this pasture was
special for another reason. Unlike the farmland on the plains
below, these hills had never been cultivated to grow a single crop
of grain. He was riding on the real thing.
Libros Libertad 